Dresden parliament in uproar at neo-Nazi outburst

Leading neo-Nazis outraged an east German state assembly yesterday by branding the second world war western allies "mass murderers" and accusing the British of perpetrating a "holocaust" against Germans.

Holger Apfel, deputy leader of the neo-Nazi National Party of Germany (NPD), had his microphone switched off during a bellowing performance in the Saxon parliament in Dresden in which he lam basted the British bombing of the city 60 years ago next month.

A week before world leaders gather in Poland to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, the parliament sought to mark the occasion with a minute's silence for all the victims of Nazism.

But Mr Apfel and his 11 NPD colleagues in the assembly boycotted the remembrance, staging a walkout from the chamber.

NPD supporters in the public gallery bayed and one of them was heard to describe the Social Democratic leader of the parliament, Cornelius Weiss, as an "old Jew".

In heated exchanges contrary to modern standards of German parliamentary life, Mr Weiss likened the Apfel diatribe to the rantings of the Nazi propaganda genius Joseph Goebbels.

All MPs of the Greens and the former communist PDS parties, and some members of the other three mainstream parties, also walked out of parliament later in protest at the incendiary speeches delivered by the neo-Nazis, who made an election breakthrough last September when the NPD took more than 9% in the elections ion Saxony and secured 12 seats.

Mr Apfel is the head of the NPD caucus in the Saxon parliament as well as the party's national deputy leader.

He is currently trying to organise a large neo-Nazi demonstration in Dresden to mark the allied firebombing of the city in February 1945, which causing an inferno that left an estimated 35,000 people dead and has been the topic of intense argument for decades.

To the outrage of the mainstream MPs, a 30-year-old NPD member, Jürgen Gansel, told the chamber: "Today we in this parliament are taking up the political battle for historical truth, and against the servitude of guilt of the German people.

"The causes of the holocaust bombing of Dresden have nothing to do with either September 1 1939 [outbreak of war] or with January 30 1933 [when Hitler came to power]."

Mr Apfel yelled that "the same mass murderers" who bombed Dresden were now waging new wars, and said that the policies now being pursued by the US and Britain were those of "gangsters".

The Christian Democrat speaker of the parliament switched off Mr Apfel's microphone when he ignored his warnings.

The minute's silence at the beginning of the session had been requested by the neo-Nazis - not for Auschwitz or Nazi victims generally, but only in honour of the victims of the Dresden bombings.

The outburst yesterday followed several calls by German politicians in recent days for Nazi insignia to be banned throughout the EU, in consequence of the Prince Harry furore.

The prince has been heavily criticised for attending a friend's theme party in Nazi dress.

The German government disclosed plans this week to criminalise statements and demonstrations in favour of Nazi leaders.